


foreword: stocking your pantry (for your werewolf boyfriend)

by andnowforyaya



Series: book one: recipes for your werewolf boyfriend [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Forests, M/M, Werewolves, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-16 09:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21034115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: "Scaredy cat," he chided himself, pressing his hand into his side where a cramp had formed. "There's nothing there." He walked slowly back to the house, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him.





	foreword: stocking your pantry (for your werewolf boyfriend)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to a and h who let me run wild with this idea and then encouraged me to give into the chase :)  
#

The woods were quiet this morning. Kun jogged with his earbuds in, one foot in front of the other, keeping to the narrow trail as his breath misted in front of him in little silver clouds. A cold snap had suddenly swept the area over the weekend, but Kun knew the chill wouldn't last once the weekend was over. It was too early for summer to release its hold over the world.

Still, he'd been excited by the colder weather and put on a zip-up hoodie over his tank to go running in this morning, and now he was regretting it slightly, his hoodie tied around his waist as sweat dripped down the back of his neck. It was only the third time he was running this trail since he'd moved into the sublet that would be his home over the next couple of months, but he was starting to recognize some of the landmarks -- a fallen tree trunk, an old bird's nest, a particularly large boulder shaped like a phallus that jut out from the mountainous terrain. He always snickered to himself when he jogged past that, feeling childish for doing so but knowing the rock meant he was close to the end of his loop.

This time was no different. He saw the rock, chuckled quietly to himself while still keeping his breathing even and steady, and felt his heart rate spike when he thought he heard his laughter echoing back at him.

The little hairs stood up in the back of his neck. He jogged on, surreptitiously looking behind himself, wondering if someone had joined him on the trail.

But the trail was empty.

Spooked, Kun ran on but lowered the volume of the music playing in his ears. It was still foggy out this early in the morning, the clouds still clinging to the trees, and this made it difficult to see too far out in any particular direction. His mind raced as quickly as his heart, conjuring up stories he'd read about in the news of lone joggers in the woods being murdered and then left to be scavenged by wolves or bears. Paranoid that he was being followed now, Kun picked up his pace, eyes darting to any shadows that flickered in the woods.

In his mind, the shadows became axe murderers, and he ran until his lungs were burning, until he thought his heart would burst inside of his chest, and then abruptly, the trail ended, and he sprinted out of the woods into his new backyard, coming to a panting stop. He looked behind himself and saw nothing but trees, and fog, and behind all that, the sunlight starting to break through.

"Scaredy cat," he chided himself, pressing his hand into his side where a cramp had formed. "There's nothing there." He walked slowly back to the house, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him.

.

"You _ what _ ?" Xuxi's voice was garbled as he yelled into the phone. "You were being _ followed _?!"

"No, no," Kun assured his friend. He balanced his phone on the nightstand and put Xuxi on speaker so that he could towel himself down after his shower and get dressed. His bedroom had a backdoor that opened out onto a patio that oversaw the small backyard with the vegetable garden patch to the right and fire pit to the left and, beyond that, into the woods behind the house.

Kun had chosen the house for the patio -- he imagined himself sitting out there with his laptop and a drink and researching recipes and writing notes in the mornings, and then moving downstairs into the kitchen for the rest of the day, experimenting with the recipes he'd researched and adapting them for his cookbook. His editor Doyoung wanted at least one new recipe a week, with the goal of publishing Kun's second book before the end of the year, just in time for the holidays.

He opened the door to the patio to let the breeze in, shimmying into a pair of boxers. "I wasn't. It just felt like I was. Probably some animal or something. They said the woods are pretty safe, though."

"So you were being stalked by a bear," Xuxi said. "Yeah, that sounds really safe."

"Relax." Kun pouted at Xuxi's tone. "I'm fine. I'll just stick to the trail."

"I don't know why you had to rent yourself a cottage in the woods to go be a mysterious cookbook author," Xuxi complained. "You can be a mysterious cookbook author in the city, too."

"It's nice out here, though," Kun said. "It's quiet."

"It's dead," Xuxi said.

"Come visit me soon, okay?"

"Why should I?" Xuxi whined. "It's so far and there's nothing to do!"

Kun chewed on his bottom lip as he rifled through his shirts that were still sitting in a shallow box at the foot of his bed. He'd only unpacked halfway, and resolved to spend the rest of this weekend making this house feel more like a home. "We can do a roast," he suggested. "We'll build a fire pit out back."

"Ooh, fire pit," Xuxi chimed. Kun laughed, imagining how his friend's eyes would have lit up at those words. "Okay, fine. I'll bring Sicheng and we'll have a party!"

"Not a loud one, though," Kun said. "The landlord said the neighbors have complained, in the past. So we can have a party, just a quiet one."

"Silent party and fire pit out back, awesome." Xuxi laughed and something rustled on his end of the line. "Hey! Sicheng, I'm on the phone--" Sicheng mumbled something in response that had Xuxi in tears. "Sorry, Kun Ge. Gotta go. My boyfriend says hello."

Kun sighed, smiling at his friends' antics. "Hi, Sicheng."

"Bye, Kun Ge!" Sicheng sang out.

The call ended, and silence rang in Kun's ears. He sighed again, pulling on a random shirt that had a graphic print of a teddy bear in a chef's hat splashed across the chest. He'd only been here for about a week, but it still surprised him how quiet it was, this far from the city. Quiet and lonely. He'd hoped the solitude would bring him focus, but now he wondered if it would have been nice to have someone with him to fill up the empty space in this house. It was too big for one person.

The back of his neck prickled suddenly, and a chill traveled down his spine, but Kun attested it to the breeze. He went to the door that opened to the patio and closed it, his eyes catching a movement in the woods, the fog disturbed.

A flash of red.

.

Kun was hunched over a bubbling pot of stew on his stove when he heard something crash in the backyard, like a clattering of pots and pans -- or like, Kun realized, his stack of firewood under the patio losing structure and tumbling all over his garden. He lowered the flame of the stove to the smallest of flames, bringing the stew to a simmer, and turned to his laptop to record the action in his notes for the recipe. Then he wiped his hands on his apron and headed through the living room and into the backyard. The door here was right underneath the door in his bedroom that led to the patio, except this one led straight out onto a deck and a floor covered in natural stone. 

Sure enough, his stack of firewood was no longer a stack, and all the dried out logs had rolled across the deck, some of them winding up in the grass of his backyard. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage like he was a teacher who’d come across kindergarten students who’d gotten into the non-toxic fingerpaints. “This is why you don’t own a home, Qian Kun,” he muttered to himself.

Rolling his sleeves up, he got to work restacking the wood into one corner of the deck, starting with the logs closest to him and working his way out into the backyard. Halfway through, he was already sweating with the effort, and this disappointed him. What was the point of staying fit and jogging every other day if restacking some firewood wore him out like this?

Still, he kept on, careful where he put his hands in case of splinters. He was so focused on his task that he didn’t even realize what he was looking at in the garden until he was right above it, about to bend over to pick it up like it was one of the logs. His hand reached out. Just before making contact, he realized he was about to touch dark, chestnut-colored fur that was matted with blood.

He threw himself back with a yelp and a curse, landing on his bottom and crushing a basil plant in the process. “Shit!” 

He stared at the dead animal on the ground just past his feet. It was a little rabbit, and it looked like it had been run over in the avalanche of logs. Maybe it had even caused the avalanche. The rabbit made him equal parts sad and sick. Kun did not like how its eyes stared back at him like it was still alive. He scrambled up to his feet and wondered what he was supposed to do with it. Should he call animal control? Should he bury it and give it a proper funeral? He didn’t know. With one last glance behind him at the unfortunate little creature, Kun headed back inside so that he could search the internet for an answer.

Just ten minutes on the internet told him he should probably call animal control. Kun didn’t think it was proper to start digging animal graves in someone else’s property, and he certainly didn’t have access to an incinerator to cremate the body like another suggestion he read. (Actually, he'd decided to call animal services two minutes into his research, but spent another 8 minutes looking up pictures of cute rabbits that were still alive to combat the image of the dead one flashing in his head.)

He went back outside as he called animal control, his phone pressed against his ear, and ambled to the garden as someone picked up on the other line.

“Hello? Animal services.”

“Yes, hi?” Kun started. “Do you do animal removal?”

“We do. Where are you located?” Kun rattled off the address and the woman on the other end confirmed it was in their jurisdiction. “We can send someone over in a few hours. How big is it?”

“It’s just a bunny,” Kun said. “I found it in my garden. Poor thing.”

“You know, there have been bear sightings in your area.”

“I know,” Kun said, suppressing a shiver. “It’s--” He paused, looking into the garden. He looked again, past the row of basil plants, the row of tomato plants growing on vines, the peppers. The rabbit was gone. “It’s not here,” he said dumbly.

“What’s not there? A bear?”

“No,” Kun said. “The rabbit. I swear it was here a moment ago.”

“And now it’s gone? Forgive me for asking, but are you sure it was dead?”

“I--” Kun paused again, recalling the blood dried around the animal’s neck, the odd angle it had lain in, stiff and unmoving. He swallowed, feeling sick again. “Maybe it wasn’t,” he said. “Sorry for bothering you.” 

“It’s not a problem,” the woman said kindly. “Watch out for those bears, though!”

She hung up. He looked out into the woods. The woods looked back.

.

The next day, there was a dead robin on the deck when Kun woke up. He called animal services again and stayed out there in the slightly chilly, grey morning, pulling his fleece zip up tighter around his body, watching just in case the robin disappeared like the rabbit did. It didn’t, and when the man from animal services showed up to dispose of the tiny bird, Kun asked him if it was normal for bears to leave dead animals lying around so close to people’s houses.

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “A bear wandering this close to people’s homes is probably sick. If you see anything like that, call the police immediately.”

“Then what could be leaving dead animals on my property like that?” Kun asked. 

The worker thought, stroking the stubble that covered his chin. “A fox, maybe?”

Kun exhaled in relief. Foxes were cute. He could deal with foxes. “How do I make it stop? I live here, now. I don’t want to come out every morning to a new dead animal.”

“You could put up a fence,” he said, raising his eyebrows and clearly judging Kun for not having thought of that before.

Kun frowned, tapping his feet in irritation. He wasn’t stupid. “I’m subletting,” he explained.

“You could set traps, then,” he said. 

“Isn’t that inhumane?”

“It’ll certainly teach the animals to stay off the property.”

Kun shook his head. “I don’t want to put up traps unless I have to.”

“You could install a motion-activated sprinkler system,” he suggested. “It’ll act up when the fox is near.”

“Again,” Kun said tightly. “I’m subletting.”

The man shrugged again and offered no other helpful suggestions, and in the end, Kun asked if he wanted a glass of water, was eternally grateful he declined the offer, and sent him on his way with a dead bird in a bag.

He went into his kitchen and thought about dishes using chicken and duck for the rest of the day, and sent Doyoung two new recipe ideas for consideration before the sun had set.

.

Kun finished unpacking over the next few days. In the mornings after his run and a shower, he drove down to the little farmers market at the small town at the bottom of the mountain and checked out what produce was available that day, lugging whatever he could manage in two or three canvas tote bags into his beat up car and chugging his way back up the winding, narrow road to the house he was renting for the next half year.

There were few houses along the road, but Kun made note of them and resolved to introduce himself sometime soon to his neighbors -- with all the recipes he was developing and testing, he'd have a lot of leftover food that he'd hate to go to waste. 

Xuxi texted daily, sharing photos that he'd already posted (and that Kun had already seen) on his Instagram of city life and life with Sicheng, along with pictures of most of the animals that come into his clinic, and though Kun was happy for his friend and loved Xuxi with all of his heart, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for himself while living as a hermit in a cabin in the woods. When he saw how good Xuxi and Sicheng were together, his last relationship that had ended nearly a year ago almost always came to mind. He and his ex were still friendly, but it was just a little sad, how things fizzled between them. It was no one's fault that they drifted -- at least that’s the story Kun had agreed to keep telling himself and everyone else -- but Kun often wondered if maybe his ex just didn't think he was worth it enough to keep trying. 

Then Kun had published a cookbook that had made it to the New York Times bestseller list, leaving little room for him to think about his ex and what he could have done to salvage their relationship. And then just as things felt like they'd start winding down again -- he'd done a morning talk show circuit, book signings, and even guested on some food competition shows -- his editor Doyoung had badgered him into agreeing to write a second book.

"You're handsome and fresh! You've got to keep the momentum going!" he'd told Kun with a kind of intensity in his eyes Kun has only ever seen in Olympic athletes on TV. "Just _ do _ it."

So he'd said okay, but only if he could do it his way, with some peace and quiet. Hence, the house nestled in the woods and mountains, hours by car outside of Vancouver. 

He was just pulling into the gravel driveway in front of his split-level house, three totes full of fresh produce and bone-in-meat cuts of beef and pork resting on ice in his passenger seat, when he saw something on the steps leading up to the front door. He turned the music down on the radio even though he wasn't paying much attention to it anyway, and let his foot off the gas, slowing.

He squinted at the mass of black and brown and grey fur right where his welcome mat should have been, and felt his blood chill inside of his veins. 

It wasn't just one dead animal, but two dead squirrels. He hit the brakes and put his car in park, letting the engine run for a minute as he thought. Should he get out? Back out of the driveway? Was there some sort of rabid fox on the loose on this property that the owner had failed to tell him about? Then he wondered if this was some perverted idea of a prank. A sort of "welcome to the neighborhood" hazing ritual that Kun absolutely wanted no part of. He hadn't met his neighbors yet; maybe they were twisted by cabin fever, like Jack in The Shining.

He shivered and pulled the sides of his zip-up hoodie closer together, looking around as much as he could through the windows of his car. The driveway was all gravel, on a gradual incline up to the house, and the house itself was built into the slope of the mountain. Behind the house, the woods leveled off for a few miles until there was a sheer drop into a ravine. The woods had slowly encroached on the front of the house -- though the backyard had been meticulously maintained, much of the drive up to the house was under shadow, as trees lined either side of the pathway. Kun looked out for foxes, and bears, and wolves.

There was nothing. The woods were quiet.

"You're being silly," Kun told himself while shutting off the engine. "It's just a dumb fox who isn't scared of people yet. Nothing to be so worked up over." Giving himself this pep talk, he opened the door and stepped out of his car, gooseflesh instantly rising on his skin as the cold hit him. He basically lived in a cloud until the sun evaporated the mist in the early afternoon and brought a couple hours of warmth and golden light to his home and the woods. "Just call animal control again…"

He walked around to the passenger side of his car and opened the door, bending over to take out the totes full of groceries. One bag over either shoulder and another hugged against his belly, Kun turned around and saw a flash of gold in between the trees so sharp and intense that he yelped and fell back against the car and into the passenger seat. "Shit!"

His heart rate instantly spiked as carrots and onions flew out of his bag and rolled across the gravel. Luckily, the two bags over his shoulders had toppled back into the car, their contents relatively unshaken. He blinked as his pulse jumped to his throat, scrambling to sit upright again, a vision of some giant beast leaping at him while he flailed and taking a bite out of his neck seared into his eyes. 

But when he sat up panting and looked into the trees, there was nothing.

"What the _ fuck _?" Kun cursed aloud, unable to catch his breath. He knew he'd seen something. Gold like that didn't exist in nature. Gold that burned like it was still hot and molten. 

He got back out of the car, leaving his groceries.

He walked to the trees and thrust his arms out in a sudden motion, feeling foolish and silly while doing so, but wanting to startle whatever he'd seen into action. Into movement. The fog swirled but nothing else responded. 

Kun stepped closer. Here, in this spot, the dirt was disturbed, freshly turned. He wasn't a tracker by any means, but even he could tell that something had been here, in between the trees, in the spot where Kun had seen the spark of gold, like a coin flashing in the sun. 

Like eyes.

Kun swallowed and backed away from the trees. He ran back to his car and brought out his groceries, kicking the fallen carrots and onions to the side where the woods began for the forest fairies or whatever to take. Then he slammed the door shut and dashed inside of the house, stepping over the dead squirrels, not wanting to look at them too closely. 

He was calling animal control, and he was telling them to bring traps.

.

Animal services stopped by later that morning to take the carcasses and to help set traps around the house. "They're mostly humane," the woman said who was helping Kun put them out. "But we _ have _ had instances of bigger animals getting caught in them and getting hurt. Accidents happen."

"I get it," Kun said, spatula in hand and arms crossed. There was a rack of ribs slow roasting in his oven and a sauce he was simmering in a pan over a low flame on the stove. "I just don't want to be eaten by a wolf in the middle of the night, thanks."

The woman laughed, said something about wolves not being able to polish off a full human as a joke that Kun didn't find funny, and left Kun to his rack of ribs.

After there were no dead animals on Kun's property for three days, Kun felt safe enough to re-establish his morning jogging routine and trip to the market. He lost himself in the art of cooking and developing new recipes, testing out new tastes on his tongue. He first earned his cooking chops specializing in bringing the flavors of his family home in the Fujian province of China to what would be considered Western-styled dishes, but after publishing a whole cookbook about these fusion dishes, he was searching for something else. Something that still felt like a part of his identity, but maybe an aspect of it he hadn’t explored yet. He knew the inspiration would come, eventually, as long as he kept cooking, but after two weeks in the woods and enough leftovers in his fridge and freezer to feed a small army, he hoped it would come sooner rather than later.

.

He knew the trail now like the back of his hand, and he stepped deftly over knotted, exposed roots and skirted around snake holes and loose rocks, sometimes making a game out of it to keep things interesting. There was another path that veered off in an eastern direction at a barely discernible fork in the trail that Kun had noticed a couple of days into his running routine that he didn’t think would be right to explore before he really came to know these woods, but on this day Kun felt bored.

He wanted inspiration, and Kun firmly believed that sometimes inspiration had to be sought, chased after. He needed to switch things up. At the fork in the trail, Kun headed east without skipping a step, noticing immediately how this trail was much narrower and more overgrown, the trees packed in on either side. Half a mile into this new section of the woods, Kun realized how dense the forest had become as well. Light still filtered down through the canopy, but there was barely any space between the trees now, and the path kept growing narrower.

He should turn back. That would be the sensible thing to do. But then he spotted a cluster of mushrooms growing out of the side of a tree trunk and jogged over it, the fungus bright white and shiny against the dark and crumbling bark, and he thought about how his ex was allergic to mushrooms and so Kun hadn’t actually cooked with them for a while -- it was habit now, just cutting them out of recipes and substituting something else for that earthy, nutty flavor. But nothing could really replace the real thing, and mushrooms were such a staple in Chinese cuisine. He missed the ingredient.

Maybe he’d do a whole book on the many uses of mushrooms and how to cook with them…

_ There, inspiration! _Kun thought giddily. Even if it wasn’t what Doyoung might call a “best-seller idea”, it was still something that Kun wanted to dig into. Satisfied, he grinned to himself and turned to go back the way that he came, thinking he’d done enough exploring for today. He could push on another mile or so tomorrow and see where he ended up on the trail, but for now he wanted to go back and head down to the market to see what sorts of mushrooms they had before he lost the spark to innovate and create.

When he looked up, there was a huge black bear crossing the narrow path in front of him, snapping twigs underfoot and off the sides of tree trunks as it passed. Kun froze.

The bear froze at the same moment, and swiveled its enormous head around to stare at Kun dead in the eyes. Silver clouds puffed around its face as it breathed.

What was it that you were supposed to do around bears? Climb a tree? But wait, couldn’t bears climb trees? It was close enough to Kun that if he moved and the bear ran, Kun wouldn’t make it a foot off the ground before the animal was upon him. Maybe he was supposed to play dead? 

The bear lumbered closer, snorting, each step it took vibrating in Kun’s chest. 

Kun was done for. He’d never write his book about mushrooms. He’d never get to host that fire pit party with Xuxi and Sicheng. He’d never bring his food over to his new neighbors to introduce himself to them and to figure out if they were the ones leaving dead animals on his property. Just as he was thinking about the dead animals, the trees crackled behind him.

He spun on his heels, thinking that of course the world would turn on him in this moment and sandwich him in between _ two _bears, but just as he spun, his eyes caught a flurry of movement to his left -- a streak of reddish, rust-colored fur.

A growl that sent a shiver flashing down his spine whipped through the air, and an answering growl quickly followed, low and rumbling like thunder. 

Kun was actually going to piss himself; he thought his heart had never hammered this quickly in his chest before. He stepped back and tripped over nothing, falling to the ground with a cry and landing sharply on his palms, pain lancing up his forearms. The bear was backing away slowly as the -- was it a dog? -- approached it, its tail stiff in the air and ears nearly pressed back flat against its head.

It was huge for a dog, its fur thick and glossy and the color of dried blood. Its features reminded Kun of a husky. Kun had no idea where it came from. There was no collar. Was it wild? Where was its owner?

The dog growled again and edged forward, closing in on the bear, but the larger animal was stepping back, shaking its head as though telling itself whatever it had been planning to do wasn’t worth it. After another growl and low, rough bark that made Kun flinch, the bear turned and loped off in another direction and deeper into the woods.

Kun sat there in stunned silence, his breath barely making it out of his body, staring after the bear’s backside. It wasn’t until he felt a cold, wet nose pressing against his arm that he startled and broke out of his trance, only to flinch and scramble away again, his back pressed up against a tree trunk, because that dog was _ huge _, the top of its head easily coming up to Kun’s chest.

The dog whined but kept its distance, ears flicking in the direction the bear went. Kun forced the air out of his lungs and back in again, fear dripping off of him. “Stay back,” Kun choked out. Then, more reverently, “Where on earth did you come from?”

The dog whined again, restless as it pawed at the ground. It flashed its eyes up at Kun and Kun gasped at the color. Like amber shot through with sunlight. Like honey. Like fire.

“You’ve been lurking, haven’t you?” Kun asked, honestly really feeling like he’s losing it, talking to a dog. “I’ve seen you.”

Incredibly, the dog whined again and yipped at Kun, as though answering the question.

“Okay, weird,” Kun said. “You must have an owner, right? You seem really familiar with humans…”

He reached forward, detaching his back from the tree. The dog’s ears instantly flattened back against its skull as it tread backwards and whimpered in warning. Kun stopped moving, looking at the animal curiously. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said quietly. After a moment, he reached forward again.

This time, the dog snarled and bared its teeth at him, barked sharp and sudden, and turned and darted away between the trees, so fast there was no way for Kun to follow.

.

His neighbor’s house was bigger than the one Kun was renting. Instead of a split-level, it was a true two-story cabin, with a sprawling porch out front and wrap-around driveway. Two cars sat before the garage, which was a separate building from the main house -- a shiny black Escalade and a forest green pickup truck. Kun gawked at the sheer size of the property, and instantly felt sheepish about coming over here in the late afternoon, unannounced, in his old sedan with two trays of leftover roasted racks of lamb and vegetables.

Unfortunately, before he could put his car in reserve and sneak back out the driveway, the front door opened and a man stepped out onto the porch, waving at him.

“Hi!” 

Kun could hear him through the windows of his car. The man beckoned him out with a grin on his face. He was handsome and young, his jawline sharp and his chin-length hair falling in thick waves. He was wearing a plaid coat and dark jeans and Kun tried very hard not to judge him for being so stereotypically dressed. After all, Kun was definitely someone who appreciated a nice plaid flannel shirt in the middle of winter before a fire. 

Kun put the car in park and turned off his engine, taking a deep breath before clambering out of his vehicle and plastering a smile on his own face. “Hi!” he tried to call out just as cheerfully.

“I saw you on the driveway monitor,” the man said. “Makes it hard to sneak up on us. You’re not trying to rob us, are you? If so, you should have come through the back.”

“Ha ha,” Kun laughed drily, unsure what to make of his humor. He opened the back door of his car and hefted the two trays of food into his arms. “Actually, I’m your neighbor? I live down the street. I...I brought food?”

“To distract us with so you can rob us?” The man was clomping down the steps from his front porch and walking toward Kun, his strides long and purposeful. He was still smiling. 

“No, I’m not here to rob you!” Kun said.

“Oh, is that lamb?” 

Kun blinked as the man took one of the heavy glass trays from Kun’s arms and into his own. “Yes,” Kun said shakily. “They’re roasted and then seared in rosemary and garlic butter. Veggies got similar treatment. I had lots of leftovers and I didn’t want them to go to waste.”

“Did you have a party?” This close, Kun realized he had to look up at the other man, who was almost a whole head taller than he was.

“No, I’m a chef,” Kun said with a shrug. “I’m actually working on a book up here.”

“Oh, you’re the renter,” the man said, sticking his hand out from under the tray for Kun to shake. He did, though it was awkward having to do so with the tray balanced on his forearm. “I’m Johnny. Kun right?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Your landlord likes to talk,” Johnny said. “You wanna come inside?”

“Would that be okay?”

Johnny grinned with his eyes and started toward the front porch, Kun quickly following. “Oh, sure. Taeil loves company. We go into the city sometimes on the weekends but most of the time it’s just us out here.”

“Ah. What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’m a writer.” Johnny turned and winked at Kun from over his shoulder, a move that Kun could not decipher. 

“Okay,” Kun said, for lack of anything else. “What do you write about?”

“Are these still rare?” Johnny asked. He’d lifted the corner of the foil covering the tray he was carrying to peer inside at the contents.

“Pretty rare,” Kun said. “Almost bloody.”

“Perfect,” Johnny said. “Taeil and I will love them then.”

.

The inside of the house was dark and rich, like the floors had been steeped in wine. Smoke swirled against the walls, carrying the scents of cedar and pine, and when the front door shut behind him Kun could hear the wind howling in the backyard. Johnny guided Kun past the staircase in the foyer, down the short hallway lined with paintings of the woods in different seasons on its walls, to the kitchen, where the curtains had been drawn over the windows and a man was watching the kettle on the stove.

The tray in Kun’s arms suddenly felt awfully heavy, and sweat trickled down the back of Kun’s neck. It was stuffy in here, the air cloudy, and the lights above them seemed to buzz.

“Taeil,” Johnny said in greeting, putting the tray he carried down on the dining table -- it looked homemade, fashioned out of an old window frame, a lighter wood replacing where the glass should have been. “Look what I’ve found.”

Taeil turned from the stove just as the kettle shrieked, and the tray nearly jumped out of Kun’s arms. Luckily, Johnny steadied it just in time and put it down for him as well. Taeil turned the dial all the way down to extinguish the flame under the kettle and smiled at Kun serenely. “You’ve brought food,” he said.

“Oh, it’s just some leftovers,” Kun explained, waving his hands in front of himself. “I mean, no one else has touched them. I’m developing recipes for my cookbook, see? So I’ve always got so much in my fridge that I won’t be able to eat.”

Taeil nodded slowly and walked with the kettle in hand toward him. The way he moved, he seemed to float just above the ground. It was creepy. “Kun, right?” Taeil asked. Kun shook his head yes. “I’m Taeil. Tea?” He lifted the kettle elegantly in question.

“I shouldn’t--”

“You made such an effort and the least we can do is offer you some tea, Kun,” Taeil said. He quirked an eyebrow and Kun swallowed, nervous but uncertain why. It was just his neighbors. Two lovely, nice and normal neighbors who lived in this dark, gigantic house together and Taeil kept smiling at Kun like his smile was frozen on his face, his incisors glinting in the man-made light. He took a step toward the table but paused, remembering he’d actually left something in the oven to slow roast again, and he grasped at this like a fish on a hook.

“Actually -- that’s so nice of you and I’d love to come over some other time? But I’ve just remembered that I left my oven on. I should go back to make sure I don’t burn down the house. Renting, you know?”

The smile dropped from Taeil’s face and Kun actually stepped back in surprise at the shift. Johnny swiftly moved forward and took Kun gently by the elbow, turning him out of the kitchen and guiding him back down the hallway.

“Yes, maybe that’s a good idea,” Johnny said pleasantly as they walked. When they were out of earshot, Johnny whispered, “Sorry, Taeil’s just not had his coffee yet. He’s a grump without it. We’re actually really nice! And we’d love to have you for dinner soon. I can’t wait to try the lamb.”

“Yeah, maybe you can tell me how you like it,” Kun mumbled, confused by the turn of events. Soon enough, they were by the front door, and a switch flicked in Kun’s brain. He dug his heels into the hardwood floor and spun to face Johnny, who blinked at him like a deer before headlights.

“Yes?” Johnny asked.

“Do you have a dog?” Kun blurted.

Johnny considered him for a long moment. Then he sighed and said, "No." The lights in the foyer buzzed and flickered. He opened the front the door and touched his fingers behind Kun's elbow. "We don't. Why do you ask?"

"I've seen one around," Kun said, stepping across the threshold. "Big, rust-colored. Like a husky, maybe. It wasn't wearing a collar. I'm just worried it's lost and its owners might be looking for it..."

"Did you see it out in the woods?"

"Yeah."

"Hm, we don't have a dog, and we know James and Sarah up the road from you don't, either. It could be a stray."

It didn't look like a stray. Strays that Kun had come across in his life had all been skin and bones, their fur clumped and dirty, the hunger in their eyes like a disease. No, this dog was healthy, and its eyes glowed like nothing Kun had ever seen.

"There's this really old cabin in the woods, though," Johnny continued, looking at Kun with something like pity. "No one's lived in it for years that I know of. Maybe some hikers came across the cabin? Brought their dog with them?"

"Where's the cabin?" Kun asked.

Johnny held up a finger in thought, then he plunged his hand into his pocket to retrieve his phone, pulling up a map onto the small screen. After fiddling with it for a moment, zooming in and zooming out and scrolling, Johnny turned the screen to Kun. "Look," he said, pointing. "This is us--" he pointed at a singular, long and winding road that was the road up the mountain "--our house is here. Yours is here. If you follow our road up another mile or so, you'll come across this other road. It hasn't been paved over in years, so it's a bit dangerous, but follow that here, then here. That's about where the old cabin should be."

Johnny tapped the screen and looked at Kun with triumph in his eyes.

Kun stared. "That's like, a mile or two back from me," Kun realized. "It's actually really close. I've probably run close to the edge of the backyard of this place on my jogs."

"It's possible," Johnny said.

"Thanks, Johnny." Kun smiled at him, relaxed and friendly. His nerves from before had already fizzled away -- perhaps he was developing claustrophobia? It had been quite dark and stuffy in there.

Johnny smiled back. "Happy hunting," he said.

.

Kun did not mean to take the path on the trail less traveled, again. It was just that the feeling in his stomach, the little pull in his chest and gut, made him do it. He'd never been able to leave something unresolved; his perfectionist tendencies gave him the drive he needed to tirelessly seek out the blend of spices and flavors in a dish that would make anyone's mind melt, kept him awake most nights through college as he mentally listed out the pros and cons between finishing his business degree and dropping out to backpack across Southeast Asia for two years and to cook with local chefs in the region, and also famously made him doubt himself as a loving partner.

There was probably something wrong with him. Why was he so hung up about a stray in the woods? Why couldn't he stop thinking about it? The glow from its eyes haunted Kun's dreams.

Kun ran until his thighs were burning, and then he kept running. According to the map Johnny showed him, he could follow this trail and it would lead to the old cabin's property, probably right into its backyard just like the way the trail did with Kun's house. The further along the trail he ran, the denser the woods became. The fog clung to the trees like silky spiderwebs, and at one point Kun looked up and expected to see the moon. It was dark, the tops of the trees bare as skeletons.

Then, suddenly, the trail ended, and the woods cleared. Kun, panting, came to a stop and hunched over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

The cabin stood before him, squat and dilapidated. The property was small, the back wall of the cabin barely ten paces from the edge of the woods, and the home itself looked to be one floor, and maybe even a single room. A chimney sat atop the roof on one end, and a rusted satellite dish and bent antenna on the other end. The roof itself was not in good shape -- there was a big hole in the middle, and shingles missing all around it, like it had caved in years ago. The windows in the back looked dusty; most had cracks or splinters in the glass.

Kun walked up to the building slowly, breath still coming in fast, and called out, "Hello?"

No response.

He scoffed at himself, shaking his head, hands on his hips. "What are you doing, Kun?"

He walked around to the side of the property slowly, eager to see the rest of the damage. He wished he'd brought his camera, but he still had his phone. As he walked, he stopped to take a few pictures he could post and also send to Xuxi to creep him out. The cabin definitely looked haunted, or like maybe someone had been murdered inside.

Kun shivered at the thought. What if someone _ had _ been? Johnny didn't say _ why _the cabin was abandoned.

Uncertain now if he was walking on cursed ground, Kun backed away from the cabin just as he came around to the front of it, where a small porch stood, one side of it caved in after succumbing to rot and age.

On the porch was the dog. It stood up immediately, its tail thumping against the wood, and growled at Kun, its teeth bared.

"Woah!" Kun shouted, holding his hands up in front of him and backing away further, slowly so that the animal wouldn't give chase. "Oh my god. Oh man. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, doggie. Sorry..."

The dog snarled again. Kun held his phone in front of him and snapped a picture. It barked at the sound of the fake shutter going off, and Kun almost dropped his phone.

"Shit! Sorry! Jesus. I'm just trying to find your home," he said. "You're lost, aren't you?"

The dog jumped off the porch. Kun felt his limbs freeze up and couldn't move as the animal approached him almost lazily, like it knew Kun had no control over his arms and legs. It reached Kun and pressed its nose into Kun's hand, the one with the phone, so Kun switched his phone into his other hand so that the dog could sniff him. He tried to remember to breathe as the dog's tail started to wag.

Its nose traveled up Kun's hand and pressed into the inside of his elbow. Kun hissed when he felt the dog's rough tongue scrape against the sensitive skin there, and when the dog glared at him at the movement, Kun said, "Demanding, huh?"

It went back to nosing at him with a little whine. First Kun's hands, his elbows, then his calves and knees. When it pressed its nose against Kun's crotch, Kun pushed it away with an admonishment on his lips and his finger pointed down at it. "No, bad dog," he said authoritatively. "No ball-sniffing here."

The dog whined again and flattened its ears, head drooping, and Kun almost wanted to relent and let it get a good whiff, just this once, but it was still too weird for him to think about. "Where's your owner, hm? Where did you come from?"

The dog looked back at the cabin and whined once.

"Did you live there?" Kun asked, knowing he wouldn't get a response. The dog had butted its head against Kun's hand, and Kun started to absently drag his fingers through the thick, silky fur. It was so soft, and Kun was imagining what it would feel like to lay his head down on it. Like a cloud. "Did you have a family?"

The dog whimpered.

Kun's heart broke for the creature. If it lived out here all alone for all these years... "Want me to help you find your family?" he asked.

The wind turned and a snap crackled through the trees. The dog stiffened, and then it drew back, its eyes fixed on Kun's. It fled.

.

In the week that followed, Kun sent 3 recipes over to Doyoung, got two of them scrapped, and received feedback that one of them would be good enough if he could make a couple of revisions. Also, he ran into Johnny in the market. Johnny seemed friendly enough, so he exchanged numbers with him to follow up on the promise for dinner one day soon. There were no more dead animals at his front door or in his backyard -- he almost forgot that had been a thing -- and the forecast said there would be rain this weekend. He wanted to make a nice stew and pick up a couple of beers from the local brewery ("local" here meaning less than a two-hours' drive) and settle in before the storm came, so this was exactly what he did.

He was in the kitchen, the rich beef stew bubbling away in a pot on the stove as he popped open a bottle of IPA, the sky outside dark and filled with angry storm clouds, when he heard an awful noise, the sound of a metal screeching against metal, followed by a low, mournful howl.

Kun slammed the beer down onto the counter and ran in the direction of the door to the backyard, where the noise had come from, his heart pounding in his ears. He imagined he knew that howl, and with dread chilling his blood he remembered the traps he'd asked animal services to set around his property. "No, no, no..."

He threw open the door. It smelled like a storm outside, like rain on the horizon, like electricity crackling between the clouds. The wind gushed against his chest and seemed to be trying to push him back into the house, but he grit his teeth and moved to the pile of firewood stacked on the deck.

There was a trap set up behind it. Kun held his breath as he peeked around the stack of logs and gasped when he saw the dog with the rust-colored fur on the ground, furiously gnawing at its hind leg, where metal had twisted around it as it attempted to break itself free. It was a small trap meant to contain a much smaller creature, a squirrel, perhaps -- the kind of trap that would cage a rodent inside so that you could take it and release it back out into the wild. But the dog must have stepped into it at a strange angle. The metal cut into its leg, and the gash was still bleeding.

"Hey, baby..." Kun said soothingly as the dog nipped at its own leg, likely trying to get the metal off. "Stop that, please. You're making it worse." Kun approached it slowly. When he got close enough to touch its head, the dog turned and snapped its teeth at Kun with a growl. "Hey!" Kun shouted, startled back.

The dog whined. Its ears flattened back. Then it dropped all the way down to the ground, whimpering pathetically at Kun as though in apology, its leg still jutting out at an odd angle.

"It's okay, I'm sorry I shouted," Kun said, tiptoeing closer again. "Don't bite me, okay? I'll try to get you out of there."

Kun managed to get close enough to pet the dog's head. He scratched it gently behind the ears, and the dog flopped over onto its side. "Baby..." Kun said again, heart clenching. It must be in a lot of pain. He sat down, crossed his legs, and got to work. The dog's head made its way into his lap, and it breathed slowly and deeply, as though to calm itself. "You're good. You're doing so good, sweetie," Kun murmured as he examined the trap, now glistening with blood. He hissed at the depth of the wound. When he got the dog out of this mess, he'd need help with it, for sure. Maybe he'd be able to convince Xuxi to drive out here for the rest of the weekend.

In the end, he managed to get the trap off with a bit of dexterity and strength, and he threw it to the side, exhausted by the endeavor. The dog still laid in his lap, heavy as a rock. Blood was still sluggishly dripping from the wound. Kun ran his clean hand through its fur. "You okay? You wanna come in? It's gonna storm soon, and I'd hate for you to be stuck out here in the rain."

As though he understood him, the dog pushed itself to its feet. It stumbled once as its hind leg gave out underneath its weight, but then it made a great show of limping toward the back door, even pausing to look over its shoulder at Kun, who was still sitting on the ground.

"It's so weird. It's like you know what I'm saying," Kun said quietly.

He went in after it.

.

Two and a half hours later, a dripping Xuxi stood on his doorstep in his pajamas, shouldering a small black book bag and a smile that belied the energy drink he must have had in the car on the way over. Sicheng stood next to him, bundled up in a fuzzy coat, silk pajama bottom shorts, and bright yellow rain boots. "Where's my patient?" Xuxi asked by way of greeting.

"He's on the couch," Kun said. "Really, thank you so much for coming out here. Everywhere was closed for the night and I didn't want to wait until morning."

Xuxi waved away Kun's apologies and strode into the house. "Ah, and where's the couch?"

"Turn right," Kun said. He ushered Sicheng, who was still shivering on his doorstep, into the warmth. "Thanks so much for coming, too. I know it's a long drive."

"You promised great food and beer," Sicheng pointed out. "Plus, there's no way I'd let Xuxi drive alone up a strange mountain in weather like this? Freaky."

Kun smiled weakly as Sicheng tugged off his boots and followed his boyfriend into the living room, where a high-pitched yelp had him running after them both. "Oh my god, I should have warned--"

The dog was prone on the couch, and Xuxi kneeled before it, stroking both hands through its fur. Kun could see blood seeping through where he'd tried to bind the wound in its leg with clean rags from the kitchen, but otherwise things were calm. Sicheng had already curled himself into a tiny ball in the loveseat closest to the radiator, and his eyes were closed.

"This is not a dog," Xuxi hummed pleasantly, as though he were saying something as innocuous as, _ it's raining outside _.

"Um," Kun said, a stone forming in his stomach. "What?"

"This is not a dog," Xuxi said again. "On the phone? You said you had a big dog injured on your couch, but this is not a dog." He paused as the not-dog arched back to lick at his cheek, and Xuxi giggled and said something like, "oochie-goochie-goo."

"What is it, then?" Kun asked.

Xuxi looked at Kun with bright, sympathetic eyes. "I mean, I understand why you thought so. He's a bit small for his species. Adults can grow to be much bigger."

"What. is. he?" Kun ground out between his teeth.

Xuxi grinned, still petting the animal on Kun's couch. "He's a wolf, Kun-dear," he said.

.

Xuxi stitched up the wolf’s leg. Tamed by a light sedative, the wolf’s tongue lolled out of its mouth as Xuxi shaved the area around the wound and made his stitches precise and clean. Sicheng woke up and got himself a beer, and grabbed another bottle to be on stand-by for whenever Xuxi finished. Kun ladled stew out in bowls for all of them.

When Xuxi was done, Kun had a wolf on his couch. He eyed the long muzzle and thought about the sharp teeth hidden behind that snout. So he’d been a wolf the whole time? Why was he so friendly, then?

“Well, the sedative should wear off in an hour or so -- is he going to stay with you?” Xuxi looked at Kun from where he had squashed himself into the loveseat with Sicheng. Neither were particularly small people, so it was almost comical to see how they’d managed. In the end, Sicheng had hoisted himself to sit half on Xuxi’s lap. 

“I -- I don’t know?”

“We could take him back with us, maybe to the clinic. But he should really be out here, closer to his home, you know? Plus I didn’t bring enough with me to keep him under for another three hours for the drive back, and I _ would not _ want a full-grown wolf in the backseat of Sicheng’s car.”

“I think he’s been following me around,” Kun admitted slowly from where he was perched on an arm of his couch. The wolf took up nearly the whole length of the piece of furniture. “Is that normal, ah, wolf behavior?”

“Maybe he’s tracking you!” Xuxi commented with a laugh. Sicheng slapped Xuxi’s thigh but chuckled with him, and Kun blushed. “He’s probably just curious. He can’t go back out into the woods yet, though, not with that leg.”

Kun’s heart stuttered in his chest. He’d been the one to have those traps put out. It was his fault his wolf was injured like this…

“We can call one of the vets nearby tomorrow morning to see if they’ve got space to keep him,” Sicheng offered. 

Kun nodded. “Oh, right.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” 

The radiator spat out warm air as the night went on. They finished many of the beers Kun had bought, and chatted about everything and nothing. Kun felt so wonderfully full with warm stew and love for his friends, and this was the feeling he carried with him as he was lulled to sleep that night. 

.

Kun woke up on a cloud. He sighed and smiled in his half-conscious state, eyes still closed as he burrowed deeper into the pile of fluff underneath him. Everything was so soft, and it smelled like the forest. He was almost too warm, but the softness of the cloud kept him teetering on the edge of peaceful sleep.

That is, until he heard a clattering noise coming from the kitchen and the cloud underneath him twitched, and Kun could feel a heartbeat that wasn’t his against his palms.

He shot upright with a gasp. “Wolf!” he cried.

The wolf huffed at him, raising his head to lick at Kun’s cheek before dropping back down onto the cushions, unbothered. Behind Kun, the wolf’s tail thumped against the couch in a steady rhythm.

“Oh my god, I fell asleep on the couch!” Kun said a little hysterically, scrambling off the furniture to stand. He stumbled in the direction of the kitchen, watching the wolf warily. His golden eyes bore into Kun’s with unnatural focus. “With the wolf!”

In the kitchen, Sicheng turned from the counter bearing two mugs of steaming coffee. “Oh, you’re up,” he said. “You looked so comfortable, and Wolfie was still kinda sleeping, too, so we thought it would be okay to leave you.”

“You thought it would be okay to leave me with a wild predator?!” Kun took the coffee Sicheng offered him and sipped at the hot liquid, scowling at the taste. It was much too bitter.

Sicheng shrugged and said, “He seems friendly with you.”

“Xuxi,” Kun whined pathetically, hoping the vet would be able to make his boyfriend see sense.

Xuxi stood before Kun’s stove, burning eggs in a frying pan and crisping up slabs of bacon in another. “He wasn’t gonna hurt you,” Xuxi supplied unhelpfully. He scraped the burnt eggs onto a plate and presented the plate to Kun with a sheepish smile. “I always put the flame on too high…”

“God, I’ll make the eggs,” Kun said, taking the plate. “I wouldn’t feed this to my dog.”

“Wolfie, you mean.”

“He’s not mine!” Kun shouted. 

Sicheng laughed and said, “You should see if he’ll eat the eggs. Or maybe some raw meat? You must have some lying around in your freezer…”

“I go to the market daily to pick everything up fresh,” Kun huffed. “I’ll pick up some extra cuts today, I suppose.”

“Weren’t we going to call the vet today or animal services to see if someone can take him?”

“Right,” Kun said. His stomach felt heavy thinking about it, for some reason. “Let me call them now.”

“Make the eggs first!” Xuxi insisted.

Kun ignored him and went back into the living room, where the wolf was waiting for him. His phone was stuck in between the cushions in the couch. Kun could see the black corner of the machine sticking out right near the wolf’s belly. Hesitantly, he inched forward to pluck his phone into his hands, the wolf watching him the whole time. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a wild animal?” Kun mused, when all the wolf did was whine a bit and flop onto its side. 

He called the vet’s office first. They could take him, the receptionist said, but they’d need to turn him over to animal services pretty quickly because of limited space. When Kun called animal services, the staff there told Kun they could keep the wolf in one of their kennels.

“How big is the kennel?” he asked.

“Oh, you know, not big, to be honest. Meant to hold a medium to large size dog overnight.”

Kun sighed, thanked them, and said he’d call around some more. He looked at the wolf on his couch and couldn’t imagine containing him in a steel cage. 

“This is such a bad idea,” he said aloud as he tentatively sat down near the wolf’s head, near his teeth. The wolf just shimmied up onto the couch so that he could lay his head in Kun’s lap. “I’m subletting, you know? This place isn’t mine, so you can’t wreck anything. I mean _ anything _. Promise?”

The wolf’s tail thumped. He licked the palm of Kun’s hand as though in agreement.

.

Living with a wolf wasn't as difficult as Kun imagined it would be. For one, the wolf seemed content to be lazy on the couch as he healed, only whining to be let out every once in a while to roam around the backyard, limping, and ducking into the trees for short periods of time. He always came back, and usually before Kun could think to miss him.

Kun started buying more meat in the mornings at the market, and when he ran into Johnny with a tote bag fat with raw meats and bloodied juices threatening to leak out, he told him he was working on some heavier recipes. 

The first morning that he decided to try to go for a run, he left the wolf on the couch and prayed to the heavens and his ancestors that he'd come back to a house still standing and whole. Forty minutes later, he returned with his sweat already drying quickly on his skin in the cold, crisp air, and Wolfie -- as he started calling him in his mind -- was waiting for him by the back door, tail thumping against the floor as he sat, his injured leg stuck out at an angle from the rest of his body. He greeted Kun with a soft bark and enthusiastic sniffing as Kun opened the door, and Kun thought maybe he could get used to this. It was nice to come home to something, someone, who was excited to see him.

For a week, Wolfie slept on the couch. Though he whined and pawed at Kun's door at night when the lights were off and Kun's bedroom was too cold even with the radiator clacking away, Kun thought it might be best to keep this boundary between them. Wolfie might be well-behaved during the day, padding around the kitchen with Kun as Kun tinkered with his recipes, sniffing ingredients before Kun used them, but he was still _ wild _. Kun couldn't forget that.

Then the radiator broke.

The first snow storm of the year was in the forecast, and temperatures had dropped quickly. Kun walked around the house with a blanket thrown over his shoulders and found himself jealous of Wolfie's thick, warm fur. By now, he was limping around more easily, and had stopped trying to gnaw at the stitches, and he was healing nicely. Throughout the day, he'd follow at Kun's heels like a loveable, slightly menacing shadow, always ready to lick Kun's palm in reassurance or try a morsel of beef or chicken Kun had cooked in a pan. His landlord told him he'd send someone out to check out the radiator but with the storm quickly picking up speed and strength, it would be at least a couple of days, until the storm passed.

"What am I supposed to do until then?"

"Layer up, hunny bun," his landlord told him, "and learn how to use the fireplace."

Kun learned, but the problem was that the fireplace was in the living room, and his bedroom might as well have been encased in an iceblock. The first night with a small fire weakly flickering in the fireplace, Kun tried to kick Wolfie off the couch but the massive figure would not budge, and only gave Kun a dead stare when Kun pleaded with him. Sleeping on the loveseat bundled up in three layers and two heavy blankets still gave him a horrible crick in his neck upon waking, and he was cranky for most of the following day.

By day three, the storm was still raging outside, covering the whole world in a marshmallow-like layer of snow, and Kun was tired, and his body was sore all over. That evening, he stood before his wolf on the couch and said, "Animal services is just a phone call away, you know? Don't turn on me in the middle of the night."

Wolfie licked Kun's palm and flopped over to make room on the couch when Kun put his knee up onto one of the cushions. It still struck Kun how strange it was that Wolfie seemed to understand him. Maybe he'd been around humans for a while, and could piece together meaning by the way the sentences sounded? The forest was still in its golden eyes, but there was something else there, too. Something familiar. Kun was too tired to follow that string of thought to its end.

Spreading his body out on the couch with a sigh, he spooned Wolfie and sank his limbs into the animal's fur. It felt like a sauna under his blanket with the wolf, but Kun welcomed it as warmth finally seeped back into his muscles and bones.

In the morning, the snow had stopped, and Kun woke up with Wolfie's nose and face buried in his armpit. When he went to push him away, the wolf snorted and huffed -- universal sounds of annoyance -- but rolled over to let Kun out.

It went like this until the guy came to fix the radiator, and then it continued even beyond that. By the end of the second week of cohabitation, Kun was convinced he'd do anything for his wolf companion. 

.

He came back from the market with his produce and a leather collar from one of the booths. He'd bought it on a whim. It wasn't that he thought he could be a wolf's owner, but he wanted something that could signify some sort of bond between them. Eventually, when he let Wolfie go after his leg was fully healed, maybe the collar would stay on as a symbol of their time together. 

He'd always been the sentimental sort.

Wolfie did not like the collar. He whined when Kun circled it around his neck -- it was the largest size available, and still it was just barely large enough -- and scratched at it when Kun closed the clasp. "Relax," Kun said. "It looks good on you." Wolfie snorted and stopped scratching at it, but wouldn't stop shooting Kun glares when Kun's back was turned, his gaze instantly becoming forlorn and pitiful whenever Kun noticed. "Those puppy dog eyes only work on me for food," Kun told him.

By the end of their third week together, the wound on Wolfie's leg had formed shiny new skin over the gash, and his hair was starting to grow back in the area Xuxi had shaved. He'd gotten used to the collar, and more than once Kun had to push him away from the stove when he'd gotten too curious about something he was cooking. Kun slept on the couch more often than he slept on the bed -- his need for cleanliness still kept him from allowing Wolfie into his bedroom, even though the animal was certainly clean enough, and always just smelled of the woods.

Kun had taught Wolfie to sit for a treat. At least, as much as anyone could teach a wild animal tricks like that. He was half-convinced Wolfie knew the scheme and was just humoring him every time Kun held up a piece of meat or jerky and said, "sit," or, "paw."

Xuxi called to check how Kun was doing, and to inquire after his patient. "I think it's time to let him go, Kun," Xuxi said, in a tone that bespoke the difficulty he knew Kun would have accepting this piece of information.

"No, he's still healing," Kun protested.

"You can't keep him forever. He needs to be out there, in the woods."

"Ccrrrrkkkk, shshhhrrk, you're breaking up Xuxi--"

"You're making those sounds with your mouth."

"Bye, sorry, I can't hear you--"

"Kun--"

Kun hung up with a sigh. He imagined the house, creaking in the wind, cold and empty with only him inside. He knew without a doubt that without his wolf, he'd be incredibly, achingly lonely.

Wolfie trotted into the kitchen where Kun had been making the call. He nudged his nose against Kun's palm and then pressed his face into Kun's belly, nuzzling him, as though sensing his distress and trying to offer comfort. Kun carded his fingers through the wolf's thick, soft fur.

"One more week, okay? And then I'll let you go," he promised quietly. The wolf whimpered against Kun's skin.

.

Kun woke up on the couch, burning up and sticky with sweat. He grappled with the blankets twisted around his body, groaning, trying to push them down. Kun had taken to sleeping in a tank and boxers because of how hot it got under the blankets with the wolf. Wolfie's face was in his armpit again, and in his sleep he was occasionally darting his tongue out to lick at Kun's skin there. 

"Too hot," he complained, pushing at Wolfie's face.

"Urgh."

Kun froze at the distinctly human noise. His hand met with the softness of human lips and cheeks. A rough but soft tongue swiped over his palm. A nose pushed into the heel of his hand. Kun's eyes flew open.

There was a man on the couch with him. In his shock, Kun quickly took in the head of black, shaggy hair, his sharp nose and the elegant curve of his eyelids even in sleep. _ Pretty _, his thinking brain helpfully supplied.

_ Naked _ ! his lizard brain shouted. _ He licked you! _

"Ah!" Kun screamed, falling off the couch. He landed painfully on his rear, his legs caught in the blankets. "What?! How--? How did you get in?!"

The man shifted on the couch. Wolfie's collar dangled around his neck, the black leather stark against his skin. 

"What did you do to my wolf?!" Kun shouted.

The man whined and threw his arms out to stretch luxuriously on the couch. He was thin but toned, his muscles long under his skin. He rubbed at his nose with the back of one hand and blinked his eyes open.

Kun gasped. Amber shot through with sunlight. Honey on fire. It couldn't be.

"Hi," the man said, beaming at Kun now that he was awake. "I'm Ten!"

.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! comments and kudos appreciated! 
> 
> this is meant to be a series, but i don't know when i'll be writing the next part -- hopefully soon, but i've got a couple of other fic projects that take precedence before this one...
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/andnowforyaya) | [my cc](http://curiouscat.me/andnowforyaya)


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